


To Lay and Soothe

by dinosaurspice



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bisexuality, Coming Out, Fluff, Other, Sleepovers, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-05-20 18:53:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14900069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dinosaurspice/pseuds/dinosaurspice
Summary: Spending the night with his best friend, Itachi hears a confession. Mostly platonic, could be interpreted as romantic.





	To Lay and Soothe

**Author's Note:**

> This is an excerpt from a larger work, but I don't know if I will keep it in the final version. The scene is too cute to delete entirely, though, so here it is. Happy Pride?
> 
> Itachi is 12, and Shisui is 15.
> 
> Oh, and the title is from the Deftones song "Entombed."

Itachi, like most kids, loves the weekend. According to his parents, he’s supposed to use the weekend to get ahead on his homework, but it’s all so easy to him that he doesn’t bother most of the time. They scold him now and then, but since his grades never falter, they let him have his Saturdays. And Saturdays are invariably spent with Shisui. They take turns spending the night at each other’s houses. During the day, they ride bikes and play in the woods and watch TV or YouTube, and sometimes they bring Sasuke with them. Itachi loves playing with his two favorite people, and he loves that Shisui loves his brother. Sometimes it feels as if Shisui is his brother, too; the feeling is warm and safe and happy. He loves this feeling.

His instinct is to guard his love close to his heart. The world is so wretched that if it saw how important Shisui and Sasuke are to him, it would try to rip them away from him. He doesn’t talk much to other people, who mostly make fun of him when he dares to voice that he loves his two brothers. Being watched and judged all the time is hard; Itachi feels as though he’s acting all the time, especially around his parents, but he’s not sure what he’s trying to be. His mother is always reminding him to be responsible, and his father is always telling him to be successful. Itachi wants to be those things for them. Even around Sasuke, Itachi tries so hard to be a perfect brother; he wants to be a good role model and someone Sasuke can depend on. But it’s hard. So nighttime is his favorite part of his sleepovers with Shisui. There’s no acting, no pretense, no distance between him and Shisui, especially when they’re pressed together in one twin-sized bed.

No matter how tired he feels when he and Shisui decide to go to bed, Itachi is never more awake than he is in that first hour of lying next to his best friend. Shisui always wakes up, too, and the two of them end up talking for hours in the dark. Sometimes they talk about silly or imaginative things, like what they would do if they had a million dollars or how they would survive on a deserted island. Sometimes they confide in each other secret feelings about their lives. Shisui knows that Itachi feels a lot of pressure from his parents, just as Itachi knows that Shisui struggles to deal with his dad’s dementia and failing health. 

Now, though, they’ve fallen silent, their breaths soft and warm with encroaching sleep. Itachi’s body is heavy and relaxed, and he lets himself curl into Shisui’s back. Shisui’s unruly hair tickles his face, and the heat and scent of Shisui’s body are heady, making Itachi’s insides tingle and flutter. He’s intensely aware of every point where they connect: his knee by Shisui’s thigh, his hand against Shisui’s shirt, his breath blowing on Shisui’s neck and back onto his own face. The feeling is exhilarating; at the same time, though, his heart pulls forward, and he wishes he could reach out for more.

“Hey, Itachi.”

Shisui’s voice, though quiet and raspy, startles him, and he knows Shisui can feel him jump away.

“Yeah?” he breathes, heart pounding. A hot feeling like guilt twinges his gut and burns his face, but he ignores it.

Shisui chuckles and shifts onto his back, his shoulder now brushing against Itachi’s arm which lies tucked between their bodies. There’s a pause, and the only sound is of Shisui drawing a slow breath. Itachi wonders if he imagines the shakiness of that breath.

“Can I ask you something kind of weird?”

Itachi blinks, calm again but now confused. “Yeah.”

“Do you—” Shisui’s voice shrinks in a way Itachi’s not used to, and his shoulder tenses—“do you . . . like girls?”

In the dark, Itachi frowns. The question has caught him utterly off guard, but he does his best to think about his answer honestly. The truth is, he doesn’t think about girls often. He doesn’t think about anyone much besides Shisui and Sasuke; they’re his whole world. However, he knows a girl he talks to sometimes at school has a crush on him. He likes her okay, but definitely not as much as she likes him. Could he grow to like her that way? He can’t imagine it.

“I don’t know,” he answers softly.

Shisui is so tense that Itachi can feel him trembling slightly. “Yeah?”

Itachi hums an affirmative. He’s not sure if he should wait for Shisui to say more, but the fact that Shisui is this nervous is worrying him. So he asks, “Do you?”

Shisui swallows audibly. “Yeah, I do. But I—”

He cuts off, and Itachi waits with bated breath to hear more. He searches, wide-eyed, for Shisui’s face but can’t see much. He can see Shisui’s hands clamped tightly over his belly, however, and suppresses an impulse to touch him.

“I think—would it be weird if I . . . liked boys, too?”

Itachi blinks rapidly, again stunned into silence as he processes Shisui’s words. A confession. One syllable echoes in his heart: _Oh_. Itachi doesn’t know if liking boys is weird, doesn’t know the right thing to say, but he knows Shisui must be freaking out at his lack of response.

“I don’t know,” he again says honestly. He thinks it’s a mistake, though, because he feels Shisui stiffen further. He scrambles to amend himself. “I mean, I guess not. But . . . what do you mean?”

Another long exhale leaves Shisui. “I mean I . . . like . . . both.”

Itachi frowns, puzzled. “Doesn’t everybody?”

Shisui makes a surprised bark of a laugh, and Itachi can feel him relax slightly. “I don’t know about that. I mean, like, when it comes to relationship stuff. Like kissing or holding hands or . . . I think I could do that with a guy or a girl.”

“Oh.” Itachi’s mind draws a blank. He’s so surprised that he doesn’t know what to think. He is also once more deeply aware of each point of physical contact between them. He’s tempted to ask Shisui why he’s saying all this, but he knows why. It’s because Shisui trusts him. “I don’t think that’s weird.”

“Really?” Shisui’s body is still tense, but relief vibrates in his voice.

“Yeah.” Itachi feels Shisui sink into the mattress with a rush of breath, and he shifts closer, resting his forehead on Shisui’s shoulder tenderly. “Were you worried?”

Shisui nods against Itachi’s hair. “I was really worried—” his voice cracks, and he swallows a few times—“because we hang out all the time, and you’re so important to me, and I didn’t want—”

“Shisui,” Itachi, spurred by a rare sense of urgency, interrupts. “You’re my best friend. I’d never let you go over something like that. To be honest, I don’t think it’s such a big deal. . . .”

A sound between a sob and a laugh shudders out of Shisui, and by the way Shisui’s arm moves, Itachi can tell he’s wiping his face. Itachi’s eyebrows pull together, and when he looks up, he can just detect the outline of Shisui’s arm raised and his hand pressed to his face.

“Shisui?”

There’s a loud sniffle—clearly, Shisui is no longer trying to hide his crying. “Thank you, Itachi,” he croaks.

“For what?”

Shisui wipes his face again and rolls to face Itachi, pressing their foreheads together. “For being my friend. For being you.”

Itachi’s heart swells, and when he feels tears prick his eyes, he tucks himself under Shisui’s chin and hugs his friend with one arm. “I love you, Shisui,” he says, earnestly.

Shisui hugs him back, squeezing tight. “I love you, too.”


End file.
